Indonesia’s eastern islands bombarded by earthquakes today

At 11:45 am today, another Indonesian island is struck by a 5.8 magnitude earthquake. Epicenter is located at 100 km northwest of Manokwari in Papua, Indonesia.

A 5.6 magnitude earthquake shook the Aru Islands of Indonesia at 10:11am about 100 kms off Manokwari, following a 7.2 magnitude earthquake which rocked the same islands at 1 am today with several aftershock separated by approximately 30 seconds. Epicenter is closer to Darwin, Australia which is 900 kms away than Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, which is 2900 kms away.

Early warning bulletin said no tsunami threat exists to coastlines in the Pacific. However, USGS warning bulletin said, it might generate local tsunamis that can be destructive along coasts located with a few hundred kms of the earthquake epicenter.

There were no report of injuries or damage according to the Indonesian meteorological and geophysics agency as it lifted its tsunami warning 90 minutes after the tremor.

Papua was traded in the US drafted New York Agreement by the Netherlands to Indonesian rule. To quote the Dept of State summary for 1961-63, “the Bureau of European Affairs was sympathetic to the Dutch view that annexation by Indonesia would simply trade white for brown colonialism.”

Another unwilling colony hosting an American gold mine while the Cold-war is still being used as the smoke-screen to convince the US to continue funding the Indonesian military against Papuan demands for a vote.

As the US Dept. of State said in 1963 “The underlying reason that the Kennedy administration pressed the Netherlands to accept this agreement was that it believed that Cold War considerations of preventing Indonesia from going Communist overrode the Dutch case.”

Bnd1430

The article was relative to a swarm of earthquakes near Irian Jaya. I am not sure I see the relationship to a political movement here.

Be that as it may the concept colonialism (reference Sumeria, Genghis Kahn, etc) has been a facet of human nature since the beginning of time. There is very little we can do to change the nature of other humans.

Like the Russians occupying the Kuril Islands in the final days World War 2, it is simply a land grab and I don’t find it odd that they don’t want to give them back. The resource rich areas and the population come with it.

Colonialism like fashion goes on forever and only changes colors now and then.